Email Subscription

PostGame PostUp: Edmonton 2 Anaheim 3

The game featured a couple of milestones worth noting. Ducks TV color analyst Brian Hayward performed his 1000 telecast. Hazy has his detractors and it goes with the territory. For my money he’s one of the best in business. For a company guy, Hazy has maintained a surprisingly independent voice.

Teemu Selanne registered his 1300th career point. Selanne is 3rd among active players on the All Time Regular Season Points Leaders list. He trails Detroit’s Mike Modano who is second with 1,367 and Boston’s Mark Recchi who has tallied 1,512. Teemu is currently 32 on the All Time Points Leaders and would easily enter the top 20 if he plays another year.

Teemu’s career mark of 1.06 points per game ties the mark left by Bobby Clarke, Adam Oates, Michel Goulet and is competitive with such greats as Mark Messier 1.07 and Gordie Howe who registered 1.05 points per game.

Our Ducks took a 2-zip lead in the first on goals from Luca Sbisa and Teemu Sleanne. Selanne put us up 3-0 but the Oilers hung in, fought back and turned a potential laugher into a nail-biter.

Selanne was the first star of the game. With a sheepish grin Teemu told Kent French, “We stopped skating which made it more interesting.”

Contrast that to this Twitter exchange between Eric “Ice” Stephens and I.

@icemancometh Oh wow. Good enough to hang on against the worst in the West. Impressive.

Brian Hayward called it a tendency to go into that defensive shell. He said that during these times our Ducks seem to be content to hold inside position and refuse to pressure the puck carrier. The rest of us simply note our Ducks quit skating. I could find at least one example per game when Hayward ‘splains it fully and better than any of us.

I do disagree with Hazy from time to time. You’ll find that on his blog, where I occasionally leave a comment.

Another reason our guys couldn’t put the Oilers away was an ineffective power play. Without Ryan Getzlaf we aren’t running the PP from the mid-boards or if you prefer, the half wall.

There was an attempt during the four-minute high sticking advantage late in the third. The second unit of Ryan-Lupul & Blake tried to operate off the half wall. For reasons I don’t understand though it was Lupul, not Ryan attempting to QB the PP from the mid-boards.

I’m not sure if that was poor communication. The guys out of position or some other reason. It was obvious Loops was tentative with the puck on the half wall. It should have been Ryan and/or Lupul needs more practice if the job is going to fall to him.

Those particular out of sync Frank Clank moments stood out like a Kings fan at a Mensa Society convention. It was doubly unusual because Ryan and Lupul look to be developing some genuine chemistry out there.

Our Ducks did hang on, including a very scary 5 on 3 that became a 6 on 3 when the Oilers pulled their goalie and finally a 6 on 2 when Saku Koivu broke his stick and left zone.

The by the skin of their teeth win left our Ducks in seventh place with a 5 point lead over the three teams tied for ninth. It’s still no time to celebrate as each of those teams, Los Angeles, Minnesota and San Jose have 4, 3 and 2 games in hand respectively.

Advertisements

Related

I must agree that without Getzy, our PP is less effective (we are at 18% without RG, compared to 23.3% for the season). However, at the beginning of the season, Getzlaf’s PP quarterbacking from the half-boards was even less effective – 13.33% during the first 11 games. Mainly because it was static (Getzy did not move), predictable, and because one of our forwards was standing behind the goal most of the time and we were not crushing the net.
Our PK is improving, operating at 94% during the last 10 games. This progress is amazing, since we are at 82% for the season.

I believe part of the progress on the PP is the better PP face-off win percentage of Saku over Getz. Saku has won 66% of his PP faceoffs (60/91) compared to Getz’s slightly less than 50% (70/141). Big difference when the PP starts with possession vice losing the draw and approximately 20 seconds of PP time when they have to recover a PK dump and make entry to the offensive zone.